


(crawled out of the sea) straight into my arms

by heartunsettledsoul



Series: Forgotten Moments [11]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, I just need them taking care of each other, Mentions of Blood, bughead - Freeform, pre episode predictions, protective jug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-14 22:34:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13599843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartunsettledsoul/pseuds/heartunsettledsoul
Summary: Betty felt like she was on cloud nine as she crept through the door, bracing herself for the impact of Alice’s scolding as she hears the loud roar of the truck’s muffler round the corner of Elm Street.The bubble pops when she sees the blood.Or, some predictions for 2.13 in which Anna & I just wanted to see Protective!Jug





	(crawled out of the sea) straight into my arms

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jugandbettsdetectiveagency](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jugandbettsdetectiveagency/gifts).



Betty Cooper used to scoff at the idea that ignorance is bliss; it is always better to know the entire situation so as to adequately and properly handle it. Maybe it was the Cooper in her, that constant ingrained voice telling her to handle every single thing with perfect grace and charm. 

 

But now, Betty is longing for the truly blissful ignorance of her evening with Jughead. Feeling deliciously worn out and satisfied, she walked through the front door—well beyond curfew with no threatening calls from her mother, which should have been her first warning—still basking in the glow of her reunion with the boy she’s fairly certain is the love of her life. 

 

Jughead, very reluctantly, drove Betty home once they realized the time. Betty hadn’t wanted to leave the warmth of his arms either, tangled together under worn flannel blankets in the smaller of the trailer’s two bedrooms. He kissed her hard in the front seat of FP’s truck while they idled in from of the Cooper’s front door. A few lights were on, so Betty knew she was already in for a lecture when she unlocked the bolt, and they decided to throw caution to the wind and continue kissing until Betty was out of breath again and Jughead was trying to pull her over the gear shift into his lap. 

 

“I love you,” he whispered between pressing softer, chaste kisses against her lips after they acknowledge she really,  _ really  _ should go inside now. 

 

Betty felt like she was on cloud nine as she crept through the door, bracing herself for the impact of Alice’s scolding as she hears the loud roar of the truck’s muffler round the corner of Elm Street. 

 

The bubble pops when she sees the blood. 

 

Everything seems to fracture around Betty as she takes in the scene before her: the congealing consistency of the liquid her mother is desperately trying to mop up, Chic’s stuttered hyperventilating across the kitchen, the distinct sound whooshing through her ears as though she’s underwater.

 

When she bites her lip, some corner of Betty’s brain registers that just hours before Jughead had bitten that same lip and soothed it with heated kisses. Now all she can taste is the metallic tang of her own blood, heightened by the cloying smell of the blood that permeates the perfect veneer of Alice Cooper’s home. 

 

Something in her stomach twists violently and Betty sprints for the front hall washroom to vomit into the toilet. She still hears things through a veil and it sounds like Alice is shouting from blocks away when she tells Betty to get a hold of herself. 

 

Betty’s heart is in her throat and nails are in her palms when she returns to where Alice mopping up blood. It doesn’t look like she’s made even a dent in the mess. There’s just  _ so much  _ of it, but Betty focuses on that sheer amount of blood instead of the body in her periphery. If she takes the time to think hard about whether those eyes are open, whether there’s life in them, she may throw up again. 

 

Chic is still crouched on the ground on the other side of the blood and though Betty wants to reach him, try to comfort this person she feels an inexplicable connection to beyond just shared DNA, she can’t bring herself to cross the proverbial and literal red sea before her. 

 

“Mom,” she chokes out. “What  _ happened?”  _

 

Alice sounds exasperated with Betty as she speaks, but as though it were something as mundane as Betty wearing an unflattering cut of jeans and not asking about the potentially dead body on their kitchen floor. “Elizabeth, we do not have time for this. Go get more rags from garage please. The ones your father washes the cars with. Now!” 

 

Because she can’t think of anything else to do, Betty listens. Because that’s what Betty Cooper does: she listens to her mother. She listens to her mother tell her to change out of her dress and into pants; listens as she’s told to run a load of laundry that is purely blood-soaked rags, to wash Chic’s hands of blood for him, to help Alice wrap  _ the body  _ in more towels, transport it in the back of the station wagon, drive with her to some back corner of the Southside, and carry it into a drain pipe. 

 

During the painfully silent drive, Betty tries to find words. What is there to say when driving across town with your mother who’s wearing your favorite coat to cover her blood-stained sweater and there’s a body in the trunk? Do you tell her you just lost your virginity? 

 

Apparently you bring up the father of the boy you just lost your virginity to. 

 

“FP,” she says quietly. 

 

“What?” Alice is exasperated once again. 

 

“He, well.” The words keep sticking in her throat. “He’s hidden a body before. We could ...call for an extra pair of hands?” 

 

The snort Alice gives in response is nothing short of derisive. “He was  _ caught _ , Elizabeth. He hid a body but he didn’t hide it very well.” 

 

When the body is deposited, the thud echoing with a sick finality, Betty’s brain finally catches up to her body and something inside her shatters. Alice says nothing during the drive back, but she does remove one hand from the steering wheel to tightly grip her daughter’s clenched fist. In comfort, in solidarity, in ...something, she’s just not sure what. 

 

Betty is shaking when they return home, unable to wrap her head around what has transpired. She beelines for the credenza in the foyer where she’d left her phone after Jughead dropped her off. Her palms are slick with sweat and blood— _ hers,  _ not that it’s all that much better than the alternative—when she presses the call button next to Jughead’s name. 

 

It’s now so late it could be considered early, but knowing Jughead, he may still be awake. Betty is terrified and unsettled and craving nothing but the safety of his arms around her again. 

 

He picks up on the second ring. “Betts?” His voice is soft and it makes her cry even harder. Jughead is instantly more alert when he hears the choking sob she bites back to catch her breath. “Betty? What’s the matter, what happened?” 

 

“Juggie, I need you,  _ now. _ ” Betty’s voice cracks and on the other end of the line, the front door of the Jones trailer slams behind him. 

 

“I’m on my way, hold tight.” 

 

An eternity passes between the moment the line clicks off and when Betty hears the squeal of brakes on the street outside. Alice has said nothing, only scrubbing at the now-clean kitchen floor and murmuring assurances to the shell-shocked form of her son. Betty is huddled at the base of the front stairs, body collapsing in on itself, watching while Jughead dismounts the motorcycle and starts sprinting toward the still-unlocked front door of the Cooper home. 

 

He bursts through in an unceremonious crash, glancing around wildly until his gaze settles on Betty, hunched and sobbing, and immediately kneels in front of her. Jughead cups her face in his hands, thumbs stroking tears away and searching her eyes for an explanation. “Betty, what’s happening? Tell me what’s wrong,” he says in an urgent whisper. 

 

Her lungs are in a vice grip and she can’t suck in enough air to speak. All Betty can feel is the sharp, stinging pain of the cuts on her palms and the rough skin of Jughead’s hands on her cheeks. Everything else is blindingly, confusingly numb. 

 

With all the slow deliberation one might use in diffusing a bomb, Jughead removes one hand from Betty’s face to slowly uncurl her fists and flatten out each one in turn. “Shhh,” he whispers as he places his own hands lightly on top of hers. “It’s alright, just breathe in and out.” She is still shaking beneath his touch but feels a fraction of a degree more at ease as she lets his voice wash over her. “Betty, baby, can you tell me what’s going on?” 

 

He looks to the lights still on in the kitchen, taking in Alice’s battalion of cleaning supplies and Chic’s huddled form. “Uh, Mrs. Cooper?” 

 

The older woman offers no explanation, but looks at him with kinder eyes than usual. A confusing sign in and of itself, Jughead decides. “Jughead, can you please help get Betty cleaned up and in bed?” 

 

He blinks. Even Betty raises her head slightly, eyes still full of tears, but clearing momentarily to acknowledge her mother’s words. As one does, they listen to Alice Cooper. Jughead takes Betty’s hand and helps her stand on stiff, shaky knees before guiding her up the stairs with a soothing hand rubbing up and down her back. Betty stands stock still in the doorway of her bedroom, as if she doesn’t recognize the world in front of her—things have changed irrevocably since leaving her room earlier that day. 

 

“Do you want pajamas?” asks Jughead lightly. 

 

Her gaze is slightly unfocused as she tries to make sense of things. “I have to shower?” she rasps out. There has to be blood on her somewhere that isn’t hers. The realization makes her want to scrub at her skin until she’s raw. 

 

Bewildered, Jughead takes the lead, grabbing the fluffy pink robe from where it’s strewn over the back of her vanity chair before gently walking Betty into the bathroom down the hall. The tiny room is overwhelmed with the scent of Betty’s perfume and shampoo, the comforting scent rolling over Jughead in waves and grounding him. He is still on high alert, completely unable to figure out what the hell is going on, but Betty seems to be physically fine—aside from her palms—and that alone calms his heart rate. 

 

When he unwraps the hair tie from her ponytail and tugs the sweater over her head, the moment feels entirely different from when he undressed Betty just hours before. All the gentle intimacy is still there, but instead of lust, Jughead is overcome with the urge to protect Betty. He just cannot tell what from. Turning on the taps and ushering Betty in with a quiet, “I’ll be right here,” Jughead fixes himself against the bathroom counter. He remembers the raw skin of her palms and starts to dig around drawers for neosporin and bandages; there’s a well-stocked collection surreptitiously hidden behind extra shampoos and lotions, and it makes his heart ache to think of all the times Betty must have cleaned her hands up alone. 

 

Eventually, the taps squeak off and Betty emerges with mascara rings around her eyes and wet hair plastered against her cheeks. She shrugs on the robe when Jughead hands it to her, picking up the supplies from the counter and guiding her back across the hall to her bedroom. Sitting her at the edge of her soft pink bed, Jughead kneels down to carefully apply ointment and band-aids to each of the crescent sores on Betty’s hands, dropping light kisses on top of each one as he finishes. As he does, Betty lays down and curls into the fetal position, gripping his hands to pull him along with her. 

 

“Don’t let go,” she pleads. 

 

Momentarily shifting his weight to flip off the lights, Jughead returns to fold himself along the bends of her body. He holds her in his arms, desperately hoping she knows he won’t ever let her go again. 

 

“I’ve got you,” he whispers into her ear. “I’ve always got you.” 

**Author's Note:**

> as always, please leave comments/reviews if you enjoyed! they make the world go round and help your favorite fic writers keep writing.


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